When I was at art college in Canterbury in the early 80's, I lived for three years in Whitstable and the beach huts in Tankerton appeared in several of my paintings (see below). A return visit in 2022, sparked a return to this favourite motif, with a new series exploring colour and geometry and difference within sameness...
'Beach Huts (Purple & Teal)' 35x45cm
'Beach Huts (Window)' 50x70cm
Beach huts through a window or yellow wall - with a painting - or yellow frame? Or does 'window' refer to the solitary window, in the beach hut on the left?
'Beach Huts (Cobalt Blue)' 35x45cm
'Beach Huts (Red Door)' 30x40cm
'This is colour, this is drawing, this is composition, this is a love of oil-paint, all the things it can do: wet-on wet, wet on dry, opaque and transparent, thick and thin, weight and lightness, glowing colour - new yellow, new reds - knife, brush, pour, fingers. The decision-making is intuitive and from the painting: what to leave, what to embellish, creating space and colour relationships and ambiguities. I'm enjoying the unintended subversion of reality. The beach huts face the sea, the viewer is on the beach, but the colours of the sea creep in from the right side, behind the beach huts, until a form appears'
'Beach Huts (Pink)' 30x40cm SOLD
'Beach Huts (Yellow)' 30x40cm 'Painting of the Day' with Contemporary British Painting
'Yellows on a wet Red-Oxide/Phthalo Green ground first...then the beach-huts. Work the imge, work the ground, re-draw the image with the ground...move the image, get the spacing right, open up the image, allow the ground equality: this is colour, this is drawing, this is composition, this is instinct, this is knowledge, this is now, this is art history, this is painting...'
'Beach Huts (Stripes)' 40x30cm
'Beach Huts (Ultramarine)' 30x40cm
'Beach Huts (Green Brushmark)' 30x40cm SOLD
'The Lighthouse' and 'Harold Parkinson & Gnasher' 1983